University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Raymond Pace Alexander (1897-1974) and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1898-1989) were pioneers among African Americans in the legal profession and leaders in public affairs, politics, and government throughout the middle half of the twentieth century. Raymond Pace Alexander was a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1920 and from Harvard Law School in 1923. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander earned all three of her degrees (A.B. 1918, M.A. 1919, and Ph.D. 1921) from the University of Pennsylvania. The Alexander Papers constitute a highly significant resource for the social and political history of the city of Philadelphia and, in particular, for the history of the city's black professional and political elite, black civic organizations, and institutions concerned with race relations and civil rights.

This is a collection of Book-of-the-Month club news, mailings, and offers along with a few examples of other book-seller related materials such as advertisements, catalogs, lists, and financial and business documents, mostly receipts. The bulk of the collection is from the years 1850 to 1961 with a few outlying documents from the 1820s to 1840s.

The American Section was one of the first to evolve during the early development of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The University Archaeological Association established in 1887 and later, the American Exploration Society, established in 1892, exhibited several small collections in College Hall before the building campaign for the museum began. Charles Abbott was the first curator of the section succeeded by Henry C. Mercer and then Stewart Culin who was also named Director in 1899. Each succeeding curator was responsible for adding collections, many of them representing their own expeditions in the United States, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and South America. Records in the files are dated from 1826 through the 1980s. The transfer of materials to the Archives took place piecemeal and without a central organization. The current re-processing placed the files into three series, Deaccessions and Loans, Collectors and Collections and Exhibits.

Alexander Scott was born in 1854 in Camberwell, Surrey, the son of the famed British portrait painter for the Illustrated London News, Thomas Dewel Scott. He became known as a world traveler, landscape painter and collector of Asian antiquities. This collection was donated to the Penn Museum in 2011 by Anne Bowbeer, the wife of Alexander Scott's nephew, following the death of Mabel Scott Hall, Alexander Scott's widow

Arthur Hobson Quinn (1875-1960) was a professor and dean of English and History at the University of Pennsylvania and an internationally recognized authority on the history of American drama. This collection contains material representative of Quinn’s entire professional life: correspondence, manuscripts of books and articles, lecture notes, reviews of contemporary plays, his collection of playbills and libretti, and material related to his research on Edgar Allan Poe and the American realist playwright James A. Herne.

Founded in 1907, the Charlotte Cushman Club was originally intended to provide respectable lodgings for actresses appearing in Philadelphia theaters. In the years of World War II the Club ceased to provide residential services, becoming a favorite gathering place of theater lovers as well as of the many actresses and actors visiting the city with their touring companies. The Charlotte Cushman Club Records offer insight into the activities, the administration, and the membership of the Club during the whole life of the organization, until its closure in 1998. The collection also includes part of the holdings of the former Club’s museum and library.

The Chestnut Hill Hospital School of Nursing Records consist of 20.45 linear feet of hospital records, school administration records, faculty and student files, yearbooks, photographs, and some artifacts. The records extend from the school's creation in 1908 until its closing in 1987. The collection comprehensively documents the growth of a suburban community hospital nurse training program.

Cornelius Weygandt attended the University of Pennsylvania and received his PhD in 1901. Weygandt had a fifty-five year career as a teacher in the Department of English at Penn, and also obtained literary success for his storytelling skills. The Cornelius Weygandt Papers document his literary efforts primarily from the 1920s to the 1950s. The majority of the collection contains unpublished of essays and books he had prepared and may have planned to publish.

The Curriculum and Lecture Notes Collection was created by the University Archives in the 1950s to assemble individual manuscripts and small groupings of archival material relating to courses taught at the University of Pennsylvania throughout its entire history. This collection documents the teaching methods used in the various schools of the University of Pennsylvania throughout its history.

The Edgar Arthur Singer, Jr. Papers documents the career and life of University of Pennsylvania Professor of Philosophy Edgar Arthur Singer, Jr. The collection consists primarily of lecture materials, addresses, and copies of publications – particularly material on his final work Experience and Reflection.

Enid Frank Goldsmith, the sister of Waldo Frank (1889-1967), was born on March 30, 1888, and died on December 7, 1983. The letters in this collection span several generations and mainly include correspondence between various members of the Frank and Goldsmith families between 1886 and 1984. The majority of the letters are either written to or by Enid Goldsmith between 1917 and 1960. Other prominent writers include Waldo Frank, Julius J. Frank, and Morton Goldsmith.

The Frazer Family Papers span over 200 years of an American family. The collection provides insight into five generations of University of Pennsylvania alum as well as three generations of educators, all in the field of chemistry, at the University of Pennsylvania and contains the papers of Persifor Frazer, Robert Frazer, John Fries Frazer, Persifor Frazer, Robert Frazer, John Frazer, John Frazer, Jr., and Tench Frazer, as well as a range of other family members and relatives. The collection is particularly strong in representing the professional and personal activities of Persifor Frazer (1844-1909) and his son John Frazer (1882-1964) from the 1860s to the 1950s.

Gaylord P. Harnwell was a physicist and president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1953 – 1970. The Gaylord P. Harnwell Papers document various aspects of his personal and professional life.

George Wharton Pepper, an 1862 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, was a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer and U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. The George Wharton Pepper Papers document his personal and professional life.

Gordon Alexander Block (1885-1964) was a Philadelphia lawyer and collector of Lincoln documents and memorabilia. The collection includes twenty-three documents either signed by Lincoln or in his hand including a number of pleadings and court documents from his years as a lawyer in Illinois. The collection also contains a variety of ephemera from the Civil War era, including campaign ribbons and songbooks from 1860 and 1864 as well as broadsides, ribbons, and mourning cards issued after Lincoln’s assassination. In addition, researchers will find a rich selection of visual representations of Lincoln in the collection, including lithographs, prints, photographs, and engravings of the sixteenth president.

The H.H. Furness Memorial Library focuses on the study of Shakespeare and other Tudor and Stuart dramatists. Horace Howard Furness (1833-1912) and his son Horace Howard Furness Jr. (1865-1930) founded and edited the Variorum Shakespeare and their library was donated to the University of Pennsylvania in 1932. This collection contains personal correspondence to and from Rev. William Henry Furness (1802-1896), Horace Howard Furness, and Horace Howard Furness, Jr., largely relating to Shakespearean study and the H.H. Furness Memorial library; notebooks; copies of speeches and articles; and other assorted items relating to Shakespearean scholarship or to the Furness family.

Harold Scheie was a noted ophthalmologist at the University of Pennsylvania. The Harold Glendon Scheie Papers mainly document the professional contributions and achievements of Dr. Scheie in the field of Ophthalmology. There is a small group of personal papers, but these papers, in large part, still reflect in some way upon his devotion to his profession.

Irene Matthews is a nurse historian who spent part of her career researching notable women who served as nurses in the military services. This collection includes the files that Matthews created while researching several women for a proposed publication entitled Dictionary of Early Nurses.

Jay A. Gertzman is professor emeritus of English at Mansfield University. This collection includes research material collected and used by Jay Gertzman to produce his book Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940;. Documents collected here pertain to the proliferation and censorship of erotic material in the era between the two World Wars.

John Bach McMaster (1852-1932) was an American writer and professor best known for his landmark history of the United States, A History of the People of the United States, which appeared in eight volumes from 1883 to 1913. McMaster’s historical technique was notable in its use of newspaper material and his insistence on providing social context from all classes, not simply the political leaders of the time. This collection contains correspondence, writings by McMaster, material used by McMaster in his research, and personal material, such as newspaper clippings of his life and work, testimonials by colleagues, and memorabilia.

This collection contains material related to the professional, academic, and personal life of John Louis Haney (1877-1960), a high school principal, scholar, and book collector. It contains correspondence; research notes on various topics; and manuscript drafts of essays, talks, and radio transcripts, as well as an inventory of his library and journals concerning his undergraduate and graduate education.

The Lippincott Library supports business related research at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Corporate annual reports were originally collected by the library as a resource for business students. These reports typically provide financial information and updates on operations. The collection includes reports of companies from a variety of industries including agriculture, energy, food, and transportation.

The collection comprises the personal papers of Alma Mahler, the personal and professional papers of Franz Werfel, memorabilia related to Gustav Mahler, and the research files of Adolf D. Klarmann concerning Franz Werfel. Materials include correspondence to and from Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel, as well as to and from Adolf Klarmann, sometimes on behalf of Alma; writings of Alma, such as diaries and memoirs, as well as her musical compositions; writings of Werfel, such as poems, plays, novels, novellas and stories, and essays; memorabilia relating to Alma, her parents, Gustav Mahler, and Werfel, such as clippings, programs, and personal documents; photographs (many of which are online); and audio files, such as interviews and songs. Also included are Klarmann’s research notes and writings on Werfel, as well as material relating to Klarmann’s work as editor of Werfel’s writings.

The Medico-Chirurgical College had its origins in 1848 as the Medico-Chirurgical Society, but it would not be until 1881 that Dr. George P. Oliver, who had been a member of the old society and held title to the new charter, organized a faculty to hold classes. In 1916 Medico-Chirurgical College’s Department of Medicine and the Department of Dentistry merged with the University of Pennsylvania. The Medico-Chirurgical College and Hospital of Philadelphia Records consist mainly of administrative and financial records for the College and Hospital from the late nineteenth through to it's merger with the University of Pennsylvania in 1916.